Last weekend, Calvin smashed his marathon PB, but after a great race was still not happy! He tells us his race story and lessons learnt from his race:

‘Preparation was not ideal but I still felt good. The weather forecast said it was meant to rain but it was the complete opposite, the sun was out and we were ready to go. I had my target time so at least my Garmin knew what we were to do. Paris is a good course, better than London but the local spectators have no consideration for the runners and feel free to cross the road whenever they feel they can. It was all going swimmingly until the first big underpath around 18 miles, at least that’s my excuse. My Garmin lost signal and then it told me I ran over 9 min/miles. The last 10k I knew I was in trouble and my target time of 3:45 was going to be a struggle. I came in just over 3:50 and I should be happy with knocking off 6 mins off my last marathon but still was not what I was aiming for.’

Calvin’s advice for a ‘better’ race?

‘1. If you have a target time, stick to it. Just because it feeling good doesn’t make it right. 2. Going on a rugby tour of Cuba a week before the marathon does not count as tapering. That’s just taking the mick. :-)’

Mmm, think we could have figured that second one for ourselves Calvin – well done on a great race.